Exodus 32:1-14
Matthew 22:1-14
Matthew 21:33-46
As I read through today’s passages, I was struck with
the idea that sometimes people think that in being mean to other people or
catty behind their backs, or expressing hate towards some people, somehow we
end up more united with others. We can
“bond” over our criticisms of others, bond over our hatred of others, connect with
some people by making someone else a common enemy. I look at this passage from Exodus in which
the people have been led out of slavery by Moses, have come to him for food and
water; and God, through Moses, has provided.
Moses has done an amazing work through this people and as we read the
scriptures we recognize the great leadership of Moses. And yet, when Moses goes off for a time to
pray, to recuperate, to reconnect with God, the people take the opportunity of
his absence to bond with one another AGAINST him. They wanted him to be everything for them,
they wanted him to be perfect, to have infinite energy for them, to not need
time away. They wanted him to lead them
into the promised land, into comfort, maybe even into a kind of luxury. He can’t do that first because he is a human
being and second because it isn’t God’s time yet, there are other things that
must happen before they are led into the promised land. But for all these reasons, for his failure to
give them everything they want and because he has taken some time away from
them to pray, to reground himself in God, the people feel he has failed them
and they quickly turn against him. “As
for this man, Moses, we don’t have a CLUE what has happened to him. …so make
for us gods who can lead us, instead.”
And his brother, Aaron, did NOT defend him, but joined them, doing what
they asked him to do, my guess is so that he could remain a part of them, too,
bonded together AGAINST his own brother, Moses.
I also think he was afraid of their angry wagging tongues and felt that
if he stood up for his brother, he would just become the next victim of their
attacks and critiques.
It was not only that they bonded with each other in
their criticism and rejection of Moses, they also somehow believed that in that
criticism and rejection of someone else, they would get more, that this would enable them to walk away with something better than what they would have had had
they stuck with Moses and had they continued to follow in God’s way. They thought that instead of this human
person, Moses, they could get gods who would then lead them, made from the
rings and gold objects that the people had.
Gods had to be better than Moses, right?
Moses had led them out of slavery.
Moses had made sure they had food and water. But it wasn’t enough. They wanted more. They wanted more. And it was easy to
vilify Moses, to critique him, thinking that this would then get them that more.
Then we come to the gospel passages. And in the first one we read of people
invited to a wedding party who felt they had better things to do. But again, they didn’t simply say “No, we
don’t want to come”. They joined
together, grabbed the servants who had invited them to the party, abused them
and killed them. And we have to ask,
what were they thinking? Did they really
believe there would be no consequence for this behavior? That the king who invited them wouldn’t get
angry and seek retribution for their killing of his servants? But again, they seemed to believe that they would
be closer to each other, more bonded with one another and maybe even somehow
“get more” as they developed a common enemy.
In the second gospel passage I read for today it is even
clearer that this is what is going on.
When the servants come to collect what is owed to the landowner, they
kill the servants. So the landowner sends
more servants whom they also kill. When
the son comes they say to each other, “This is the heir. Come on, let’s kill him and we’ll have his
inheritance.” What kind of thinking is
that? That somehow if you kill all those
the landowner cares about that he will then leave to you everything he has?! From
a distance, from our perspective, we can see that this is absolutely crazy
thinking. We can see clearly that those
with that kind of thinking won’t survive long enough to inherit anything, but will be utterly destroyed
by the landowner. We see this, from the
safe distance of reading about it in a story.
But what about in our own lives?
In our own personal lives, don’t we put down, criticize,
condemn and sometimes even seek to destroy, at least emotionally, some people
to other people? And as we join together
in criticizing other people, don’t we somehow feel more connected to those we
are talking to? Don’t we somehow believe
that if we share a common critique against other people that we will be closer
and more united with those with whom we share that criticism? Don’t we sometimes even create friendships,
build relationships over common complaints against someone else? Sometimes I think we even believe that we
will be more fully or thoroughly respected by those with whom we are bonding
when we have a common critique of someone else, a common judgment, and
especially a common enemy.
Some time ago I was over at the house of friends when the husband in the couple received a text from a mutual friend.
His response in seeing the text was, “Oh no. Not again!
These people are always texting us.
I’m just going to ignore it.” His
wife joined in on the conversation and critique, “Yeah. We ignore his texts a lot but they don’t seem
to get the message!” They looked to me
for my support, clearly hoping I would join in on this conversation, to agree
with them for their decision to put down and fail to respond to this friend. To
agree with them about how annoying our mutual friend was. And again, perhaps the thinking was that we
would then have this “bond” over being annoyed by this other friend. But I found myself instead very upset by
their comments. I found myself
wondering, and asking, “when you don’t respond right away to my texts then is
it because you are feeling the same way towards me? Annoyed?
Bothered? Are the two of you having this same conversation about me
behind my back when I text?” Of course
they were quick to tell me, “Oh no!
That’s different!” But that conversation rang in my head from then on
when a text I sent was not answered.
I have another friend who, when I am with her, is often
criticizing her best friend, complaining about her best friend. I understand that my friend may need to work
out some of her annoyance or anxiety at times with her best friend. But again, whenever she does this, whenever
she criticizes her best friend to me,
I cannot help but wonder what she is saying about me, who is not nearly as
close to her, when I am not around.
How many of you receive forwarded emails that express
hatred towards groups of people? Christians are called to be “known by their
love” but sometimes even the most well-meaning people seem to get caught up in
hating behavior and my sense is that this is easier to do when they feel bonded
with others in a crusade, even when it is a crusade of judgment or hatred. Jesus is very clear that we are not supposed
to judge and that instead we are called to love even our enemies. Jesus is very clear that we will be known by
how compassionate and caring and merciful and grace-filled and loving we are. And the hate behavior of people who say they
are Christian, especially when their hating is done in the name of God, tends to do absolutely the opposite of what they
intend. It does not win friends or
convince people of any quality or ability to self-reflect. It loses them respect, again, especially from
those who are self-reflective, who are caring, who are seeing people. Unfortunately, it also encourages people to
lose respect for Christianity on the whole.
They are not spreading the Good News with judging condemning
behavior. They are not demonstrating a
belief in a loving God who embraces the outcast, heals the wounded, and calls
us to do the same. They are turning
people against Jesus, while missing Jesus’ message of love completely.
Not that any of us are completely beyond this behavior
of trying to bond with one another by critiquing others. While on a retreat one weekend, I kept
receiving phone calls and texts from someone who knew I was on retreat and yet
continued to demand my attention, and I found myself quick to criticize that
person to those I was with. I received
an email right before writing this sermon, containing an article attacking
someone that I quickly answered with “yep, I agree” without pausing to consider
what I was doing. We do this. Judging
others gives us something to talk about.
Condemning others gives us something to complain about. Being critical gives us a chance to “vent”. Criticizing
others helps us to think through what we believe about certain issues or
behaviors so that we can act differently, and behave according to our true
principles and values.
But behaving that way is also, ultimately, against what
God would have us do. When we are
judging others, we are failing to remember that Jesus said it was the one
without sin who is called to cast the stones and that is not one of us. We are failing to remember that it is God’s
own children we are condemning since we are all God’s children. When we are bonding in our animosity towards
anyone else, we are failing to love our enemies. And I think we have to ask how God must feel
about that.
The people I trust the most and the people I respect the
most tend to be those who choose not to engage in this kind of behavior. One of the things I love the absolute most
about David is first that he is not a catty person, and that second, he calls
me on it when I am. And I respect this
in him for so many reasons. First,
seeing that he refuses to gossip negatively about others, I am less concerned
about him doing the same to me. Second,
all those who act in loving ways towards all people are so much easier to
respect as people truly doing their best to follow in Jesus’ way.
I want to clarify something here. I’m not saying that we agree with everybody
or everything. There is room for
disagreement, and when we see injustice, we are called to confront it. Always.
But this is not the same as judging people, or talking maliciously about
people. It is not the same as gossip. Denouncing unkind, unjust and unloving
behavior is also not the same as judging people and condemning people. We are called to stand up against unjust and
unloving behavior. We are not called to
call people names, to attack individuals or to be hateful towards anyone, no
matter how much we disagree with them.
But the Good News in this remains that when we fail to
be faithful, when we do choose to be critical, God still is with us, God still
provides. In the Exodus story, while God
was angry that the people had forsaken both Moses and God, God did not loose
wrath on the people but still loved them, still provided for them, still cared
for them. The Good News also is that
this God who loves us is ultimately the judge as well as the one who offers us
grace. It isn’t up to us to judge. It isn’t up to us to critique. But when we fail to remember that, even then,
the choice of who deserves critique is up to God and not us. We are freed.
Freed to love. Freed to live in
God’s grace. Freed to be known as
Christians, by the love that God calls us to exhibit. Thanks be to God.
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